


By Synchronistic Force

by joouheika



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joouheika/pseuds/joouheika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You needn't these cold hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Synchronistic Force

**Author's Note:**

> a fic for day 2 of eren week on tumblr

When Eren came home that night he remembers he'd thought with certainty his mother would be angry.

Not angry over the fact he’d disobeyed his father.

Not angry over the fact he’d endangered his life.

Not angry over the fact he’d recklessly killed some beasts in the woods on his own.

Not angry over the fact he’d brought the young girl he saved home.

And not angry over the girl herself, but angry- over the fact that he’d given her his red scarf.

He had begged his mother for it.

It was precious to her. A memento of an assumed deceased aunt he’d never met. His mother had told him whenever she brought it out when the weather got cold, when he was small, much smaller, that her big sister had given it to her for protection. For warmth. For luck. Red was a lucky colour didn’t he know?

He remembers for his mother’s birthday he’d always picked her cardinals, because they are red, and she loved the colour so (she also loved roses, that he heard can be red but they do not grow within Wall Maria, and he'd known them only by the insignia on the uniforms of the Garrison.) 

As Eren grew older red was not so much a lucky colour, but merely the colour of life and death.

Eren had asked for the scarf because among all the other interesting items of her past his mother kept, it was the most she would forgive. 

He’d been curious about the large chest she kept the scarf in, so one day he’d opened it up to find all sorts of things. A worn mantle of green with torn wings, a knife and scabbard (he’d taken not given unlike the scarf, but she might not know, not that one, since she never took it out), odd bangles that could have been of silver but now were dull and darken grey, books he wonders if Armin could read since the text is one his parents hadn’t taught him. And many other curious, foreign items his mother never showed him or anyone. It seemed sometimes more mysterious than his father’s lab in the basement, that of which he’d never been allowed into.

Only the red scarf came out of the chest. Only was it allowed. Only did she allow herself it.

He never understood it. 

Why his mother was ashamed.

Why she was ashamed of her past.

She must have been a soldier he thought, and it made sense why when they were out she’d avoid the main streets. Because they are there, the Recon Corps, her might have once been comrades, in that very green mantle she hid away but kept all the same. When he is older and is allowed to fetch- bread, wood, or water on his own and his mother cannot help him from seeing- how wonderful, how strong, how tenacious they are- how brave. What heroes they be, these soldiers of the Recon Corps! He loves to watch them leave and return. Whole and torn, battered and determined.

Why his mother cannot find pride in that, why she cannot allow herself a past- for so long Eren does not know.

He only knows if she will be angry it will be over the red scarf.

Finally she’d given it to him.

It’d been on his most recent birthday (then) she’d given it to him. 

It was still much colder than it should be she said, but spring had yet to come. Certainly not unusual that. She’d wanted for him to be born in the spring she’d said, expected it, prepared for it, but he’d arrived rather too early. She’d worried then too, if he’d be healthy, if he’d be well, but he’d come out all lungs and she’d been assured. His father had delivered him from her she’d told him, and reminded her though Eren had been born amidst the cold he would thrive and come to know the world in the warmth and flowers of spring.

He’d not worn the scarf long after she’d given it to him, she would be furious he’d parted with it so readily.

But she’s cold!

He had yelled.

Before his mother could get a word out, rare for her.

They were almost always arguing, but never like the few times he’d heard her argue with his father, while they think he sleeps. His mother never wants him to know the kind of life she did, she doesn’t want him to grow up to be like her, she doesn’t want him to have to go through what she did, she wants him to live as a human-  


Eren had stepped defensively in front of Mikasa, his mother had looked on, taken aback.

Thinking about it now, his mother would have been angry about all those things he thought she wouldn’t be. She had been. But the scarf had stopped her from letting him know so.

She’d scowled at him nonetheless, ushering them both into their home, his father trailing in behind them, weary not from having to speak with the police but for what Carla will have to say. Eren was sure before that he was going to get an earful but his mother had told them to wash up, yes the both of them, and after feeding them a rather cold meal had sent them both to bed.

Mikasa had not wanted to take off the scarf when she went to bed but Eren wasn’t having any of that. Besides, if they slept together it’d be warm wouldn’t it? That was important since the stew they’d eaten had been rather cold. Mikasa had been uncomfortable about sleeping in an unfamiliar bed but Eren had pulled her close, by her hands. They’d been the coldest it appears. As they both shared the pillow (not for long as they grew) tucked under a pile of blankets, down and wool, quilt and yarn, he’d rubbed her hands. Hoping they get warm quickly so he could sleep already.

Mikasa had been shy that night but on every night after she would gladly share his bed, snuggling up close, even deigning to do so on colder nights, even after they had separate beds. It was another thing he thought his mother would be angry over, when she threw back the covers, chiding that Eren was never early to rise, always finding not only Eren but Mikasa too. Eren thought his mother would scold Mikasa to sleep in her own bed now that she had one but his mother never did. Only telling Mikasa if she was going to sleep next to Eren she best wake him in time for the morning chores. Mikasa did so, ever diligently after that, much to Eren’s displeasure.  


If the weather allowed Mikasa would wear that red scarf.

Even in the summer heat she sometimes donned it, for Eren had told her, a couple days after she’d come to live in his home, now her home. That it was a lucky thing.

Red.

Mikasa doesn’t agree.

There is no such thing as luck, only chance. By chance and strength did Eren find her and save her. She never ever wants to rely on luck in order to survive again. If luck does truly exist in this world it is not red that is luck, but Eren. To her Eren is everything. The present and future. The flowers he picks for his mother in the fields (so she won’t be angry they’re late for dinner, again). The silence that arrives when the rain finally stops and her fears abide. The heat she feels when she runs after him, as he pursues whatever bully today that’s picking on Armin. The warmth of the scarf he gave her; that she always ties around herself, again and again. Finding some peace and happiness in these few beauties- 

For his sake, she wears it.

If it’s for his sake, then it’s for her sake as well.

Besides him always-

If she wears it in the summer it’s because Eren wants her to.

They’ll need luck if they’re going into the edge of the woods, to hunt for rabbits, to look for deer. Maybe one day they’ll kill something so big. When they return home, their hands red, and rabbit stew surely for dinner tomorrow if not today. Eren always sees his mother smile warmly, though it is brief and her frown will return, a fretful brow as she tells them to wash themselves as she washes the rabbit.

It makes him sometimes want to forget he wants to go beyond the walls.

It makes him want to pretend he doesn’t want to don the mantle in the chest.

It makes him often think on how his mother wants him to live.

But red is life and death, luck and chance, destiny and fate.

Eren realises why his mother had not been angry he’d given Mikasa the scarf.

Like how it had tied his mother to her sister, wherever her sister may be, it ties him and Mikasa now.

It’s with that Eren knows, he cannot live the life his mother wanted him to live.

Even if he soars above them, past her, as Mikasa so often fears- they will always be connected.

Their hands are both stained.

They are warm now, and red, as red as his mother’s scarf.

Mikasa's smile had been warmer than his mother's that day, when he'd taken it excitedly, her hand, talking on how their rabbits had been made into the evening meal, never a smile he saw when he took her hand as he lead the way to see the soldiers, to see the toll, to see what else of the world.

He's sure when he'll see that warmer smile again, it'll be the next time he takes her hand.


End file.
